Sensor cleaning problems with Sony A7r II

I noticed a relatively prominent sensor spot on some of my images after my last field trip – one of the potential issues with mirrorless cameras is that there is nothing between the lens opening and the sensor and so changing lenses is always going to have the risk of introducing dust. Anyway, I used my trusty Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly which works by using static in the fine brush strands to pick up the dust from the sensor, but this one appeared to be more of a mark on the sensor. I had used Visible Dust swabs in the past on a Canon APS-C camera, but these are too small for the full frame Sony, so I ordered a set of Visible Dust swabs for full frame, thinking I would use the sensor cleaning fluid I already had. So far so good – the swabs arrived, I cleaned the sensor, but my test shot looked like this when I used Lightroom’s Dust removal tool:

Dust Spots on Sony Sensor

Horrendous!!

However many times I tried, I was getting smears on the sensor and small droplets that evaporated quickly, but left these hundreds of little spots that ruined every shot I took. What a disaster!

Finally, I worked out my mistake – the old fluid (like all high alcohol products) absorbs water from the air every time the bottle is opened and so over time it become less effective. What I was really doing was using a dilute solution that was not evaporating as you slide the swab across and leaving these drying droplets everywhere on the sensor. The solution – I bought a bottle of Eclipse Optic Cleaning Fluid from NatureScapes store on Amazon. Although they have an “expedite shipping” offer, I just chose the free option and it arrived in a first class mail box in just two days from order.

There is an extra trick to cleaning the Sony Sensor – you find the menu item that manually cleans the sensor by shaking it but then leave the camera switch to “On”. This locks the sensor in place rather than letting it move about when you try to clean it. Three drops of Eclipse on the swab then allowed me to clean in one direction, turn the camera round and use the other side of the swab in the reverse direction. Because of my mess, I used a second clean swab and did it one more time, and now I have a perfectly clean sensor ready for my next outing. I do have Giottos rocket blower, so I think I will take that with me next time I am out to blow off any dust that happens to get in there.

If you need this fluid – here is the Amazon link. There are multiple sellers but I was really happy with NatureScapes at $11.30.